[Really thick visualization of a waveform playing an audio sample of a bunch of German people cheering and clapping]!
Why all the celebrating, you ask? Well, Billboard is reporting that Berlin-based SoundCloud, the widget of choice for many a music blogger, has just secured a new round of funding from everyone’s favorite venture capital behemoth, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. The bros at KPC&B got wind of Ashton Kutcher’s interest in the site after his A-Grade Fund dropped an “undisclosed amount” onto the project and have since stepped up to the table with a cool $50 million of their own, bringing the internet venture’s valuation up to an estimated $200 million.
More than hopping on the Kutcher bandwagon, though, KPC&B were also pretty interested in the sound site’s growth to 5 million registered users since sound designer Alex Ljung and artist Eric Wahlforss launched it in August 2007. For the uninitiated, the site offers a range of services that help users record and/or upload music into a sound-based social media network. Sounds produced or included in a user’s profile can then be shared across other sites and social media properties. Additional storage space and customization are available to users who pay a yearly fee for their accounts.
KPC&B have a history of investing in internet startups that leave most of us scratching our heads as to how they actually make money, like the massively overvalued Groupon and free mobile apps like Shazam and Flipboard. What will the future hold, now that SoundCloud is on its way to an inevitable multi-billion dollar IPO? Only the future will tell, but if Ashton Kutcher’s involved, you know it’ll probably be annoyingly successful.
• SoundCloud: http://soundcloud.com
• KPC&B: http://kpcb.com
• Ashton Kutcher: https://twitter.com/aplusk